Article · About 15 min read
How the Most Successful Consumer Startups Came Up With Their Idea
Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Intermediate
The consumer companion to the B2B piece, covering how Airbnb, Twitter, Pinterest, Tinder and others began. Many ideas felt trivial at the time and emerged organically rather than from a founder hunting for a business. It is reassuring proof that your small, unglamorous problem might be the one.
- Over half of these ideas felt trivial when they started
- Most emerged organically, not while actively idea hunting
- A scrappy experiment often followed the idea within days
